By
Scott Powers(with the gracious assistance and advice from several members of the Law Enforcement community)

Detachable
Magazines on bolt action rifles. Specifically, bolt action TACTICAL
rifles for police and military sniping use. Personally, I have loathed
these items for years for the headache they represent. More so because
the unsuspecting public, often the gullible recipients of the marketers'
honed skill, has long been on the receiving end of some seriously flawed
designs. The most recent of which can best be illustrated by Remington's
failed attempt in the DM series, now discontinued and for good reason.

My own views aside, lets
look into reasons people "think" they need a faster way to load a rifle.
Further, let us examine if in fact the addition of a detachable magazine
actually does what they are advertised to do - that is, to make loading
faster and more reliable under stress. After all, what is not to
like about being able to dump a mag and quickly replace it with a freshly
topped off unit?

Historically, the world's
militaries have played with this issue since the turn of the century.
Earlier in fact. For an infantry soldier, a fast reload is worth
its weight in gold because you may have 50 more targets just awaiting your
loving attention. But often, these attempts to modify existing rifles
failed. The most notorious attempt was in WWI when the German forces
tried to field a 20 round magazine for the renowned Gewehr 98. It
failed for a multitude of reasons including the force required closing
the bolt over a fully loaded magazine. And it was not exactly detachable
either. Other attempts led to permanent box magazines of medium volume
and tubular magazines permanently affixed to the rifle, but a true detachable
magazine for a bolt action rifle, in the modern sense, did not come about
until the late 1940s. Examples like this abound and the results,
over years of experimentation, were Detachable Magazine designs that were
DM in name alone. The Lee-Enfield series of rifles is an excellent
example. While the magazine was certainly removable it was neither
encouraged nor recommended other than for cleaning. Tommies were
not issued a bandoleer full of loaded mags and let loose on the Hun.
Their single magazine was numbered to the rifle and it was expected that
this magazine was to be kept in the rifle at all times and be loaded from
strippers through the top of the receiver. Why? Because they
knew to do otherwise would result in faulty or damaged magazines and dead
troops. In many cases, one magazine would not function in another
rifle of the same design. Attempts at mating detachable magazines
to bolt guns litter firearms history and provide for some interesting reading.
Infantry weapons aside, our focus is the tactical rifle. So lets
look a little further into how the notion came to pass.

The spawn of modernization

The advent of the semi-auto
finally brought about functional and reliable detachable magazines.
The operating system on these weapons provided enough force to load from
a full magazine and the magazines themselves, for the most part, were considered
expendable equipment. If you got a bad mag in the field, you tossed
it and used one of the remaining half dozen strapped to your hip.
Those that were not considered toss-aways were built extremely tuff of
heavy gage steel. The G-43 magazine is a good example. It worked.
It was heavy and you got three if you were lucky. But most importantly,
the rifle was designed at the outset to use it. That is a key ingredient
to ANY rifle, semi-auto or bolt gun, which would use a detachable magazine.

With the introduction of
the assault rifle, magazines became sturdy and aplenty. Looking at
a typical AK-47 magazine, you quickly realize you have an alternative weapon
should hand to hand fighting break out. As a blunt instrument, it
rocks. And while the M-16 magazine is nowhere remotely as hardy,
the good ones could take minor abuse and function fairly well so long as
the feed lips were not distorted. The shooting world became accustomed
to fast follow up shots and quick magazine changes. Over time, this
modern infantry style of shooting worked its way back into the minds of
both the public and the gun marketers who, seeing a trend, were more then
willing to fill it.

In a way, you could say
this trend was the death knell of precision shooting for the majority of
the shooting public, who prior to the Second World War consisted primarily
of serious minded shooters who in part survived on their skill with a rifle.

And there the problem begins.
Somehow the idea of a fast mag change, fostered by the masses and foisted
on them by the gun makers, has crept into the tactical shooting world.
Some have argued that not only is a fast follow up needed, but a fast reload
to boot. One reason given, the only one to make sense in fact, has
to do with swapping load types. Having two or three mags allows one
to carry several loads for varying purposes. But for the sheer speed
of loading one can not logically argue in favor of the DM. Realistically,
how many police find themselves facing the screaming horde on a typical
call out? And if they did, how many would be allowed to simply blast
away at said horde in a wanton dealing of instant justice? You are
right. NONE. Most police, in today's environment, are required
to turn tail while the horde overturns the police cruiser and burns down
their own city. So in terms of tactical use, a bolt action police
sniper rifle will generally be used as it was intended: to
place one well aimed shot into a person who is threatening the lives of
others. On the off chance of a fouled shot due to glass or other
barriers, or just poor marksmanship, a second shot will certainly be required
and the faster the better within reason. So what do we have?
Two shots out of five. So far, no need yet for a second magazine.
Worst case scenario: The officer is facing a group of hooligans bent on
destruction and murder. Again, as a SNIPER, what is his role?
He can hardly operate as the entry team, taking out all 6 or 8 bad guys
in a matter of seconds - not with any hope of certain incapacitation!
To even attempt it means some of the targets will be wounded and highly
motivated to start shooting any and all comers. The sniper may be
tasked to duel it out with a group of criminals as happened in California
a few years back, but again, in that case, a bolt gun at close range during
a street fight is not the weapon of choice to bring to the party.
He would have gone in with an AR15 assuming availability. An M4 carbine
is even better. And if he is really lucky, he will be able to use
his bolt rifle as designed - with a ballistic advantage and from a fairly
concealed position, while other officers engage the criminals in a more
up close and personal manner with weapons designed for that task.
How about a running target. I do not know the general policy on shooting
movers. But I can tell you that five rounds is more than enough to
nail a mover at 100 yards with certainty. Further, if you miss those
first five shots the odds of having ANY shot after ANY reload, DM or Box
magazine, is zero! Nobody is going to stand around waiting for you
to nail them after this!

So what do we have so far?
A police sniper, when properly employed, will have little reason to fire
more than a few rounds if ANY. If he does have to reload because
the situation requires it, he will generally have back up from an SRT who
will be dealing with the targets in a much more dynamic manner. If
he does not, it is unlikely that he will have a target left in his sights
to shoot at. If he is really lucky, he has a back-up sniper in the
form of a spotter who is also a trained sniper. This is FAR more
important than having a second magazine on the standby for volume shooting.
That individual should not only be on the scope, but have access to a rifle
of his own, either semi-auto like the AR series or bolt action sniper rifle.
Two snipers should have little reason to perform multiple magazine changes
in seconds. Lets face it, most callouts seem to last hours, not seconds.
You have time to swap loads if necessary.

Frankly, if an officer finds
it necessary to reload (as opposed to changing loads), we are either undergoing
a rebellion or his shooting skills are pretty questionable. But to
give this hypothetical individual some leeway, we will assume a fast reload
is required. What does it take? Very little. With practice
one can speed load a bolt action rifle, through the top or the bottom,
in less than two or three seconds. Just watch any stress course at
a tactical match. You will see some seriously fast reloads without
DMs. And in MANY cases, those with DMs are SLOWER because many of
the designs DO NOT WORK.

So, do you really need a
DM for changing loads? No. With a little skill and training
you can dump one load and replace it with another in a timely manner using
a traditional and reliable internal box magazine.

The DM mentality

I don't know if I just
coined this phrase but it seems to fit the general shooting public where
detachable magazines are concerned. "If I have the rounds, I can
shoot faster!" seems to be the credo. Just go to any range and observe
the shooters. The serious ones are slowly punching little groups
in paper. The mega-magazine types are tossing lead down range at
a prodigious rate and hitting very little black in the process. If
you want to train someone to shoot well, you do not give them a repeater
with a full magazine. You give them a single round and make them
work hard for the next round by precisely placing the first. In the
civilian world, a DM magazine often means sloppy shooting habits because
the shooter knows he has more where that came from. It is a license
to waste ammo and it creates a laziness of the mind. This seems to
have afflicted people at every range I have been too. The mad minute
is a military term for tossing massive amounts of firepower down range.
It has no place in precision shooting. Yet you will see shooters
with both semi-auto and bolt rifles, with detachable mags, doing just that.
Pure wastage. It obviously has no place in serious shooting circles.
In and of itself, the magazine is not the culprit in this case, it is the
mindset of the individual. I can recount numerous conversations overheard
at gun shops where individuals expressed reasons for DMs on their bolt
guns and to a man, not one of those reasons made any sense to me.
Most sounded like simple chest beating or testosterone tossing.

About the only reason I
can see using a DM in an LE rifle is for swapping match ammo for Barrier
penetrating ammo. Even then, when considering the functional issues
and chances of misfeeding, it may be just as fast to dump the one load
out of a traditional hinged floor plate and feed in the next load in a
normal manner. And realistically, how fast do you REALLY need to
do this? Think about it.

Function and Reliability

Here we get to the real
issue at hand. If a magazine, either internal or detachable, can
not reliably function, people will DIE. A police sniper cannot afford
to have a fielded system with a magazine that may or may not function when
the time calls for that one important shot. It is not hunting where
if you lose a deer because your brand X rifle failed to feed, nothing suffers
but your stomach. In the real world, things are not so simple.
Law Enforcement sniping is not a sport.

I would like to pass on
some comments garnered from several experienced police marksman and trainers.
They have seen it all in both competition and in the field. By and
large, the DM has proven a dismal failure when added as an afterthought
to an existing design. With their permission, I am including portions
of their comments. The first comes from Brian K. Sain of the Port
Arthur (Texas) PD who recently attended the excellent sniper competition
put on by Snipercraft. The second from John Peterson at the SIG Arms
Academy.

BKS

"The only guys having
trouble [with their equipment] were those with rifles with detachable box
magazines. These guys were about ready to wrap their rifles around
the nearest tree. I saw these rifles cost guys big points in the
competition. Some were working okay but the vast majority of them
would not feed. My biggest concern was that these officers' rifles
were operational and were not functioning reliably. I knew Remington
had already discontinued the D/M models but I called anyway and politely
explained who I was, what I did for a living and the problems my peers
had experienced at Sniperweek. I explained that a "missed target
or messed up hunt" took on a whole new meaning to the guys that use their
rifles for real.

"I previously had one
of the LTWs with D/M. It sucked. Since Remington doesn't make
'em anymore, I traded it for the same model with a floorplate to a collector.
He was glad to get it and I was glad for him to have it (good riddance).
The floorplate model works fine."

JP

"I am seconding the
motion on being wary of detachable magazine sniper rifles. Most were
designed to go on the guns as an afterthought and few rifle models out
there had detachable mags on their original models (but the ones that do
seem to work just fine).

Some possible advice when evaluating a sniper
rifle that has a detachable magazine:

can the magazine change or loading be done while in the prone and without a lot of noise?

get single column/single stack.

If there is a "trick" to getting the magazine in and out that would break down under stress or
when in an awkward position?

(Author's note: This is most
important. If you are required to pinch, pull, squeeze and push, you ARE
NOT going to be performing quick reloads under stress!)

can you get spares very fast and will they work the same? Some makers of the detachable
magazines made so many guns so fast they did not have enough spares or the spares were slightly
different than those issued with the original rifle.

when the magazine is full to capacity, can it be loaded into the well easily with the
bolt closed or does it need to be downloaded by one or more rounds?

On long actions using shorter rounds/calibers: be wary of these as some have problems with
feeding when going for follow-up shots (part of this is training but the initial problem has to
do with the mag well and bolt throw being designed for a longer cartridge)

If retrofitting the receiver with a detachable box magazine, will it have any detrimental
effect on accuracy or other mechanical problems? I know of various cases where .308's, 7mm's,
and .300's were retrofitted and it screwed up either accuracy, or other
factors. In one case they had to replace their stock!

If doing a magazine swap (open air/match ammo to barrier ammo or open air/match ammo to
limited penetration, etc) what is your procedure and how do you know which is which? Try
practicing this up high somewhere or on a table or something, can be tricky!

"Other lesson learned: when
something new comes out on the market, don't be the first one to buy it
(or the first thousand.) Let someone else be the guinea pig, try
before you buy, or at least "wait and see."

"And don't rely on info
from other guys or vendors (vendors especially) who claim that someone
high speed or something uses their product. I have in a number of
cases tried to verify this and what I normally find out is that either
these were samples (of which many did not make the grade or are still in
testing) or that some of these fellows are full of crap. In one case
a fellow on the team referred to as "the buyer" said the item that they
had was in fact in their possession - in a box waiting to go back!"

The comments of the above
two individuals echo many others that have piped up on the issue.
The general consensus is that if you are using a DM rifle for police work,
you run a real risk of failure to feed.

To sum it up, if you must
use a DM style magazine, do so at your own risk, not at the risk of the
public at large. By and large, most of the comments I received while
considering this article had little positive to say about the DM concept
in action. Other than changing types of rounds (Barrier, Light
Pen, or Match) there seems to be little merit in the risk that a DM presents
in the field. I feel so strongly about this that I would not recommend
them even for military use. Why? ARTILLERY!!! If you
have to shoot that much at one time, you had damn well better be calling
in the Arty. And moving a lot.

If you are already employed
with a DM style rifle it is well worth your time to put it through a series
of tests to assure functionality. Stress courses and tactical matches
are a great proving ground for these systems. Problems not encountered
at the range will often rise up to bite you under the combined stress of
competition and a timed event. Through these experiences you can
alter your style and method of reloading and weed out bad magazines, rifles,
and equipment. Even the standard internal box magazine can exhibit
problems when you are speed loading under stress. It pays great dividends
to expose yourself to higher levels of stress to find out just how good,
or bad, your equipment is.

In closing, and to head
off an overwhelming deluge of mail in favor if the DM on bolt guns, let
me state that yes, there are some examples that work. Retrofitting
is seldom successful, but occasionally a company will create a product
that genuinely works. If you have one of these and have proven to
yourself BEYOND A DOUBT that it will function as designed, then by all
means, use it. But historically retrofitting seldom results in a
100% reliable system. If your job places the lives of others in your
hands, you owe it to them to assure that your system works, EVERYTIME.